Living in Poverty

I had a job interview yesterday that asked me my experience with poverty.  So many memories came flooding back.  Memories that I don't necessary block, but I don't think of them daily.  I know money doesn't define who you are, and for what reasons would I ever talk about this.  There are 2 people in my life that I have shared my families experience with, and had never planned to disclose it in an interview.

Obviously this question took my by surprise, so I was only able to share a small bit of my experience due to my emotional state at the time.  I need more preparation for stuff like this.

My family went from living in a large, beautiful home, in what people would call the ritzy area of town, to living in a run down old commercial building with no heat or a/c.  I didn't think of us as rich or as poor, but we had everything we needed in both places.

I am not sure what happen, but suddenly we lost our home (I didn't know this at the time) and we were moving.  My parents rented an old run down building  and decided to start a thrift store, and our family got to live in the store.  We all had our own bedroom, consisting of enough room for a mattress and some clothes.  We refer to it as a shelf.  We lived in part of the storage areas, with curtains acting as our door, and we used space heaters to take the edge off in the winter.  All of our clothes and shoes came from the store, even panties and socks.  I don't recall getting anything new except my awesome Guess bag for school.  We used bags, not back packs at this time in the 80's.

There was one bathroom in this building, and this is where we would sponge bath when needed, with a pan of water mom would heat up on a stove that had come in the thrift store in our make shift kitchen.  We all used the same hot or warm water to clean ourselves....YUCK now that I think about it.  Once a week we would go to friends of the family and church to take turns showering in their single wide trailer, which was huge, and they lived like rich folks to us.

We had very little money to live on, but I didn't know this.  Every week my family would load up and go dumpster jumping for food that had been thrown out.  Our main place of jumping was Albertsons, so we called it Uncle Al's.  We got some great food there!  Yogurt, break, Captain Crunch cereal, bread, and fruit filled deserts that were super good.  My mom would go once or twice a week to help clean out the deli or produce section of a grocery store, and in return she would get to split the old produce that they were going to throw away with the other helpers.  This program was called Helping Hands, and it helped keep food in our bellies.

Our family was never big in going out to eat, hello, there were 8 kids in our family.  I recall two special occasions where we bought a bucket of KFC and took it to the park, and another time we all went to McDonald's for dinner.

After my dad died, my mom started a tradition to take the family to dinner once a year on my dad's birthday.  This was a big treat to go out to eat.

Being rich is a state of mind.  My parents always talked of everything we had, not what we didn't have.  I believe I choose my path in life far before I came here.  I would not change my past for it has made me who I am today.

Disowned by Family Members

As a small child attending a Polygamist church with my family, and living the polygamy ways, I noticed a few things about family.  Our family of 8 use to always go to my Grandmas house for Thanksgiving, which was about 10 hours away.  We stayed in her house, and ate at her super long table.  I have many  pictures of this happy, annual holiday at her house, pre polygamy.

Once our family converted from Mormons to Polygamist, things changed.  We stopped spending Thanksgiving at my Grandma's, and the only time we went there was for annual family reunions.  We no longer stayed with Grandma or Aunts or Uncles, we didn't hang out at their homes, we camped in the mountains for a week and spent time as a family, and attended the reunions.  I loved these week long camping in the mountain with my family times.  They are fond memories of mine.

Little did I know that the reasons we were camping and not hanging out with her sisters and brothers, was because my mom's mother wanted not much to do with her.  She obviously did not agree with my parents choice of religion.  She still gave us hugs and treated us kids the same, as far as I recall, but apparently there was more.

Thinking about God for a second, he is our father, and he understands that we, his children will make mistakes, but he still loves us and does his best to help us.  I can't imagine my own mother who is still living to right me off as her child.

Many years later and many years after my Grandmothers death, I found out that she left all her kids money and belonging, and my mom was left $1.00.  This still hurts me to think that a mother could love her kids differently.   So differently that she divides her estate between her kids to show it.

My mom never said anything to us kids about this, I just remember her mom passing away and how hurt my mom was.  I thought all her pain came from the fact that she had lost her mom.  But now today, I am still hurt over how the will of my grandmother was written, and how her estate was divided.  Willing her daughter $1 was such a slam from her to my parents, which is exactly what my grandmother was trying to do.

Our Pet Rabbits

My dad bought the cutest Rex rabbits when I was little.  He built a beautiful hutch for them, and they lived in paradise right under the biggest Sunflower I had ever seen.  Their life was good.  Everyday after school, I remember playing with the rabbits in our yard.  Dad said they were the best rabbits.  Their fur was super soft and they would be worth breeding.

After having them for a few months, we came home from school and went to see them, and they were gone!  Where did they go?  There was a shovel lying up against the hutch, but we thought nothing of it.  When we went inside to ask about the rabbits, Mom said that Dad had killed them for pelts.  I guess dad wanted to sell the rabbit furs. 

In out basement were all the pelts in the process of becoming money in Dad's pocket.  We were all very sad and could not believe our dad would do such a thing.  

Come dinner time, when we asked what was for dinner, my parents didn't say a whole lot.  Finally, I think it was said as a joke, they said we were eating our rabbits.  After all the work my mom had gone through to cook the rabbits, none of us would even taste it.  

Still to this day I don't understand it.  Was our family struggling that much that my dad killed and cooked our pet rabbits for food and a few dollars in the pocket?  Or did my dad really think that the rabbit pelts would be worth enough to make it worth it?  Some things I will never know or understand.  Even when I ask my mom questions about this time in our lives, she doesn't have much to say and claims she doesn't remember.

My mom is a passive, sweet, lady with a heart bigger than any I've ever known.  She doesn't ask many question, she has a heart of gold.  I guess my dad was able to buy and do pretty much as he felt he needed to do, without my mom asking questions.   And for this reason he bought rabbits, and built the amazing rabbit hutch, so we could kill the rabbits and not eat them.  

Slurped Milk

I don't know where people learn their manners, but in my house growing up we were taught a lot of things and slurping milk was not one of them.

My parents dropped us kids off at a church members home for the weekend so they could go somewhere.  This family lived on a farm.  They had goats, chickens, a big barn with a swing, and a lot of bails of hay.  But what part of living on a farm means your house needs to smell of sour milk, and stench?  Just being in this house made me not want to be in there.

This family was nice, but the smell told me they were gross.  For breakfast we were all sitting at the table eating some slop of some kind, and drinking milk.  Our family is not a big milk drinker, but regardless, we had milk.  My little sister accidentally spilled her milk.  The mom was a little bothered, but by all means that milk would not go to waste.  She leaned over the table, put her lips to the milk, and started slurping it all up.  WOW, what kind of manners was that.  We were all shocked, and wanted to laugh.

I am sure they spent hours milking their cows, or goats to get that milk.  So I guess I can appreciate her not wanting to waste that 8 oz of it, but I have not lived in her shoes, and frankly I would rather not.

Living with Other Kids

All my childhood I remember having the best cat.  She was a beautiful, sweet tempered Calico, with the most beautiful markings.  Not only was she a great cat, but she was very smart too.  She always brought us gifts from the fields and sometimes left them in our shoes.  Sometimes it would be a lizard, but most of the time it was a dead mouse.  She also got around with every other cat in the neighborhood.  My mom would call her a little promiscuous cat.  It sure seemed like she was always pregnant or tending to little ones.  One of her litters included a few orange striped kittens.  They were very cute, as are all kittens.

At this time one of my "Aunts" and her daughter and kids, that must have been single at this time, was living with us.  I never did call this daughter my cousins.  She was much older than I was and had some bratty little kids, with ratty looking hair, and bugger noses.

One of these bratty little kids, probably 3 years old, found some of my moms sharp Gingher scissors, and decided to cut off one of the baby kitten's tails.  We came home from somewhere and found a bloody stump at the bottom of one of these kitten's tails.  I don't recall her getting in trouble or scolded.  She was too small to say much.  But I do remember not liking her for it.  This was a start of a bad living situation.  What kind of a child goes and cuts a tail of an animal off.  Poor kitten.  I don't recall if it lived or died, I just remembering how could this little brat do such a thing.

Living with kids from different home styles is not easy, and then adding in their own kids and a cat.  We had enough going on with my dad marrying two other ladies, and then them living with us, and then their own kids living with us, and then some of their gran kids too.  Busy household.

The "Worldly" Family

As small kids my sisters and I felt like our family was the "worldly" family.  We did not really fit in with most of the other members of the church, nor did we put much effort into it.  There were about 3 other families that we felt were pretty normal.  I think they all joined the church about a year or so before our family.   We dressed in what we felt were normal clothes, we wore tank tops and shorts as weather approved, we acted like normal kids, and we had a happy family.  I don't think that our family stood out as different from society, aside from the fact that our "Aunts" and "Cousins" lived with us.  We were normal, but a bit sheltered from the world.

I am sure we labeled ourselves, but that's how we felt.  Many of the other church members lived away from civilization out in the boonies in double wide trailers, without landscape, using a septic tank, and a one large water tank for all to share.  A big dirty mess from my point of view.  I am guessing their families were "called" to live out there. At least they had a very nice, hardly used, play set.  God bless them for having faith and doing what they were told God wanted them to do (though a self appointed Profit of this church), while my dad's calling was to be a missionary for the church (I think).  I was young and I know my dad worked, but it was never clear what he did.  Either way,  I was perfectly happy living within 10 minutes of a store and feeling normal, even though we all knew we had a little secret that others wouldn't understand.

As the worldly family, or worldly kids we were, I think some kids were told not to play with us, by all means we might rub off on them.  I don't know what we did, but I wasn't really concerned about it either way.  I liked my life just the way it was.  We had a good family, that did a lot together, and we enjoyed being around each other which is more than a lot of families can say.  Family reunions were, and still are fun with no drama.  Worldly or not we are a good family.

Teachings From the Home

While Dad was out spreading the gospel for this church, Mom was at home teaching all of us school.  My parents sheltered us from what could have been some hard times, and gave us the privileged to be together in unity and learn from home.  My mom was a super hero to take on all 5 kids, and teach us the life skills we needed and had fun doing it.

During this time in my life the craze was the Cabbage Patch Doll.  We all know how big of a deal these dolls were, parents were pushing and hitting each other to be able to bring one home to their child.  

Our family was raised knowing we had everything we needed, and if it was meant to be then it would find a way.  So, being the talented seamstress my mother was, she took us girls to the craft store.  We bought a cabbage patch doll pattern, some skin colored material, movable are and leg things, fake hair, and iron on eyes, and set home to make our own.

We then took our sewing abilities to a new level.  I was probably 9 and my youngest sister was around five.  With guidance from Mom, we cut, sewed, ironed, and stuffed our cute new babies.  We even gave them cute little belly buttons that stuck out.  They were our pride and joy.  I believe we all still have them to this day.

After about 3 years and moving again, my parents were comfortable with us going back into public school.  I would not change this time in my life.  Not only did we learn the curriculum that was given to us, but we learned an important life skill, to get along with our family.  My sisters and brothers were very close then, and still are.   Plus, we can follow a pattern and make our own doll clothes now.  Usually we still call on mom, but it is nice having her there to continue to teach us and be our role model.